


Juice of a Bitter Fruit

by templefugate



Series: Comment_Fic [14]
Category: Birds of Prey (Comic), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Canon - Comics, Canon Disabled Character, Community: comment_fic, Drabble, F/F, Femslash, Femslash Friday, LiveJournal Prompt, One Shot, POV Female Character, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 02:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14823567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templefugate/pseuds/templefugate
Summary: Like an oracle of old, she speaks the truth whether or not she actually wants to say it."Dinah, you're fired."





	Juice of a Bitter Fruit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crookedspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/gifts).



> This is set during the beginning of Simone's run of Birds of Prey.
> 
> Prompt from LJ: "author's choice, author's choice, [profession] never retire(s)"
> 
> https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/533952.html?thread=76293824#t76293824

Superheroes never retired. They got stabbed, pushed off buildings, thrown into a volcano, poisoned, _shot_. That is what the rational part of her mind was telling her, the little voice in her head that so far had never failed her.

But what did it matter?

Barbara wheeled past Dinah with a grace that the other woman could only wish for in her hospital clunker. Her eyes wandered over rows upon rows of monitors, numbers and news videos flashing across her vision but only half meeting her eyes.

As soon as her wings were half-mended, the Black Canary would soar back into the sky. There was no denying that. Facts never changed, but the circumstances surrounding them did. Gravity was gravity whether an apple or brick was falling from the sky. Dinah would fight alongside the League, the Titans, by Green Arrow's side again, or whoever else would take her. Or maybe she'd ditch the flock and fly solo. Whatever she did, it was out of the clock tower and off Barbara's conscious.

"You can't just fire me!" She was all but screaming - any louder and the room would hold nothing but a pile of broken glass and bent metal.

"There are a lot of things that people are surprised I can do." Barbara pursed her lips. With her monitors dimmed, she could see Dinah's face reflected back at her.

Maybe she has a death wish - Barbara wouldn't put it past her. It's always the other person's life that matters more in this business, not yours. Anyone who felt otherwise never would have put a cape on in the first place.

"I told you, Dinah, I'm tired of watching my friends die on me."

"I could leave right now, never speak to you again, and you'd still see my mutilated corpse spread across a screen."

"Don't remind me."

She does leave, with little grace and more than a few bumps. By the time she made it to the street, she was only keeping herself from rolling off the sidewalk and headfirst into five-o'clock traffic by luck. Her legs were one story the hardened library didn't like to read, her shattered wrists another. Luck and a sliver of grit were all that had gotten her out of Savant's grasp once - two resources of limited supply.

Despite it all, her com was still active. One word and things would go back to their sorry excuse for normal. By next week, this would nothing but a bad memory.

Barbara shook her head. Whatever Dinah thought of her, whatever she said, it wouldn't change anything. Barbara would take her hatred and hold it close even as Black Canary soared off across the horizon. So long as Dinah lived and breathed, Babs would embrace it - it was better than nothing, which was what so many of her other comrades left her with.


End file.
